15/01/2015 - The Oscar-winning director will bring the 1993 novel The Night Manager to the small screen in 2016

Oscar-winning Danish director Susanne Bier, whose new film, A Second Chance [+see also:
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film profile], will be domestically released today (15 January), has been signed up to adapt UK author John le Carré’s espionage drama The Night Manager for the small screen, scheduled to be broadcast in 2016.

The mini-series will be produced by The Ink Factory, with the UK’s BBC One and AMC (US-Canada). The company recently made Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man [+see also:
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making of
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Published in 1993 – going on to become a bestseller in the UK and the US, and be translated into more than 20 languages – the spy story and tale of organised crime follows former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Hiddleston) as he navigates the shadowy recesses of Whitehall and Washington. To infiltrate the inner circle of a lethal arms dealer, Richard Onslow Roper (Laurie), Pine must himself become a criminal.

“The Night Manager is a relentlessly exhilarating thriller with profound emotional depths, carried by two secretive, alluring protagonists, Roper and Pine. David Farr’s script perfectly orchestrates the central cat-and-mouse game between them, and Laurie and Hiddleston’s shared soulfulness, precision and sharp humour will seduce us all. I could not be more excited,” explained Bier. 

Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning at the BBC, is looking forward to “one of the BBC’s most unique, ambitious and unmissable dramas”, which will be produced by Rob Bullock (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Chasing Shadows).

Bier won her Oscar for In a Better World [+see also:
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film profile], which was triumphant in the Best Foreign-language Film category in 2011.